Critical days ahead
The coming days are crucial for Sri Lanka.
It’s when the international community led by the USA deliberates on the island’s future.
UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in their deliberations on alleged war crimes abuse by the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) in their war against the LTTE spanning a period of over seven years only, i.e. from 2002 till the war end in April 2009, couched in diplomatic jargon, has called for a ‘hybrid’ inquiry into alleged war crimes where the accused are GoSL and the LTTE.
‘Hybrid’ as spelt out in the UNHRC report is a cocktail comprising local and international jurists backed by support staff to inquire in to such alleged crimes…………………. READ ALL
The OHRC report and beyond
There is no doubt that the report of the Office of the Human Rights Commission in Geneva (OHRC) that grabbed headlines in Sri Lanka last week would have been infinitely harsher in its assessment of the situation here in the period leading up to the end of the war in May 2009 and immediately thereafter but for the changes for the better manifest after the presidential election of January 8. Many broken fences in this country’s foreign relations with the west have been mended following the regime change and this fact need not be labored here as it is already very well known. Not only people here but the wider world outside has much more respect than before for the integrity of our judicial system today than they did in an era when the president’s loyalists were elevated to the highest judicial office and a chief justice was summarily dismissed following a disgraceful parliamentary select committee process. That these changes have happened has been widely acknowledge both domestically and internationally and we are much better placed than before to undergo scrutiny of human rights abuses that occurred on both sides of the lines during the long years of a brutal civil war……………………. READ ALL
US wants foreign hand in Lanka’s domestic probe
The new Sri Lankan government has “a very strong intent” in addressing rights concerns, a top Obama Administration official said, calling for a “credible domestic” probe with “substantial involvement” from international community to address justice and accountability.
Less than a month after she visited Sri Lanka ahead of a crucial report on alleged war crimes during the country’s decades-long civil war with the LTTE, Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Nisha Desai Biswal told PTI: “We have seen (in the new government), what we would say a very strong intent.”…………….…… READ ALL